I am about to tell of a journey which is not often narrated: down Person of Indian Origin memory lane. Typically, such a tale is reserved for first-generation Indians who describe a time when connecting to their culture wasn’t always easy….or even finding enough people to experience their heritage in a large, community setting. My point-of-view is a little different. I was born in a family that had been living in the US since 1963, and was raised in Colorado during a time which makes for great bedtime-story material to one day tell my grandkids. It’s the Indian-American version of how hard times used to be when the community was small and India was a land far, far away.
What did Indian-American families like mine do to entertain themselves and feel closer to their Indian heritage? We drove an hour each way to rent a Hindi film and buy a cassette with the latest Anil Kapoor-Madhuri Dixit hit. Get-togethers meant braving blizzards to hear uncles and aunties sing popular film songs, with ‘Chitthi Aayi Hai’ being a party favorite. And if someone had just come back from a trip to India, they would play a cassette from an unreleased film …the one mentioned in my mom’s copy of ‘Stardust’.
Weddings would be a place for us to dance to popular Hindi film tunes, and once in a while we’d attend cultural programs where children performed Bharatnatyam, and uncles and aunties again crooned songs popular ‘back home’. Just as was the case in India, our main source of entertainment was almost always associated with cinema. Despite being smaller in numbers, and having no YouTube or Hindi Mega Pack to tell us what’s new and possible in Indian entertainment, we made it work. If you had a harmonium, a mic and 2-liters of Coke, you had a rocking party. What is more amusing is that this was pretty much how things were when my mom was growing up in Missouri and Colorado. But instead of a cassette, the coveted item in those days was an LP of ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ which had traveled through three countries to reach a home in American suburbia.
The Indian Diaspora has grown tremendously from the time when my grandparents immigrated, and India is now closer than ever. Whether it’s New York or New Mexico, Indian-Americans have access to entertainment from every culture at the touch of a button and opportunities to see live Indian music and dance. Young women and men showcase their choreographing prowess at weddings by dedicating routines to the bride and groom. Indian student associations in colleges put together a string of large dances numbers to celebrate the sub-continent. And dancing continues to be an absolute must at functions celebrations during Holi and Navratri.
When we celebrate, it means we are singing and dancing. It’s as simple as that. As jubilant, beautiful and well-planned the entertainment is at the aforementioned settings, the more such functions you attend the greater your chances of knowing the latest chart-topper from a Hindi film. And most times the steps you saw on the big screen (or in the film promos on satellite channels) are again repeated…but this time it’s a live telecast. There are more venues to see live bhangra, garba-raas, and classical dance but when it comes to entertaining themselves at parties, weddings, cultural functions, and even Independence Day parades, Indian-Americans choose the ‘filmi’ route.
The Diaspora is far more comfortable with both their Indian and American identity like never before and culturally the world has become a much smaller place. Then why do we continue to party like it’s 1999? I am the first person on the dance floor when ‘Ooh La La’ is blasting at a wedding, and loudly cheer when ‘I Love My India’ is being played at a parade, but coming from a culture which is a paragon of diversity, and living in a country known as ‘the melting pot’ I know we can kick it up a notch. Can you imagine attending an Indian-American function where the evening included a Kathak-Tap dancing ensemble, an Indian stand-up comic from Trinidad, and a teen rock-band doing a Hindi-Tamil-Spanish mash up? Wouldn’t this be a more apt representation of the modern, Indian-American experience?
As we become more and more comfortable with our identity, pursue careers in various fields and become a greater part of American pop culture, I’m confident we will see more examples of our greater experience integrated into what we consider our more personal space, typically reserved for expression at Indian gatherings. I’m not suggesting there is a correct or proper way to celebrate or be entertained, or that partying needs to intellectualized. What I do offer is some food for thought, and suggest peeking outside the box we’ve been singing and dancing in for quite some time. Because how many times can we sing and dance to Munni Badnaam Hui? Even Malaika Arora Khan has a limit.
Dear NRI readers why not connect with us on the following social media platforms.
Shivani’s family has been in the US since 1963, yet she remembers watching Dilip Kumar before Mickey Mouse. Her obsession with Indian cinema continues to this day and she is known by various names, including IMDb (Indian Movie Database) and Taran Tripathi (after the film trade analyst). She lives in both New York City and Twitterland (Shivani510)…follow her on Twitter and see her obsession is not an exaggeration.
Peta Jinnath Andersen is a freelance and fiction writer. Born in Sydney, Australia, to a Fiji-Indian father and Scottish mother, she’s a bit confused about her background, but loves it all the same. Currently living in the US, she has just had her first child, and is busy studying hard in an effort to learn more about her Indian heritage – including taking Hindi lessons – so she can teach her son about just what it is that makes an NRI special.
on April 12, 2012
at 10:28 am
Wonderful post
on April 12, 2012
at 11:59 am
And songs like Senorita from ZNMD can help in the change!
on April 12, 2012
at 4:37 pm
@Rakhi Sharma: Thank you very much, Rakhi! I appreciate it.
on April 12, 2012
at 4:40 pm
@Sunil Deepak: How fun would it be to hear that song during a Flamenco-Kathak fusion?? I saw such a perforamnce on a community access show in DC years ago. Mind was blown.
on April 12, 2012
at 7:17 pm
Love the article! Food for thought and it also made me giggle!
on April 12, 2012
at 10:55 pm
@smanteris: Thank you so much for the compliment! I’m so glad you enjoyed the humor
on April 14, 2012
at 3:02 am
hmm… so i would probly say U have a better life there than India!
Nice words!
on April 14, 2012
at 4:18 am
Food for thought…and though you have written from the point of view of an NRI, i take it as a point of view of an ‘exile’ – in the cultural sense…and I hear what you say…at what point do you start shedding the ‘roots’ and our efforts to keep it pure and embrace an amalgamation. I am a bengali who has never lived in Bengal and I see this everyday at home…Do you listen to Rabindra Sangeet. If I listen to Dylan at this time, does it take away something…Its not an easy thing to answer as we change along with the time and what seems important and universal at one point seems a little trivial as time passes..
But hey all Edward Saidian philosophy beside, if our feet move when we listen to a music, we sure as hell should dance – whether its Munni or Chandrabindoo (a bengali rock band) or Shakira…hell, dance is dance
on April 14, 2012
at 3:51 pm
@JKHoNa: Thank you for the compliment! I can’t say whether my life is better in US, as I haven’t lived in India for a long period of time. But I do love being an Indian-American
on April 14, 2012
at 4:19 pm
@protik: Thank you for adding to the conversation! I’m an advocate for changing it up from time to time and feel the Indian community here has been in a formulaic rut for sometime. I think the guilt of ‘Am I Indian enough’ can be quite a burden, and maybe it should be more about ‘Am I me’ enough. And I completely agree with you…if it moves you, you should dance!
on April 15, 2012
at 3:43 am
Excellent writing , I enjoyed it very much. I had a big grin on my face!!! Keep writing and taking us back to a memory lane. I wanted to keep reading and reading……. waiting for your next!
on April 15, 2012
at 3:57 pm
@k tripathi: Thank you very much for the lovely compliment, and the encouragement! I enjoyed going down memory lane as well…I’m glad I could share the journey